In spite of the theme that the most important thing happening in the world yesterday was—the Oscars— viewership was way down. The awards went to movies that no one had seen, and pointedly ignored the really big hits. It was the most political Oscar party in years. But the glitterati of Hollywood can never get enough of red carpets, being photographed and getting awards—which they do with ever increasing frequency.

The 72nd Golden Globes Awards

The 25th Screen Actor Guild (SAG) Awards

The 57th GRAMMIES

The 87th Academy Awards (Oscars)

The 69th Tonys

The People’s Choice Awards

The Kid’s Choice Awards

The Webbys

MTV Movie Awards

Teen Choice Awards

MTV Video Music Awards

The 67th Emmy Awards

Beyond that, there are at least 50 major film festivals, the most notable being Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Venice and Berlin, but most other major cities have one as well.

Like this:

Being of the male of the species, I’ve never much understood the importance some place on the holiday. Let’s face it, Valentine’s Day is nothing more than a concoction of the greeting-card industry to promote the sales of schmaltzy valentines. And as a holiday, it’s kind of a rip-off — if even the most perfectly executed Valentine’s Day gesture doesn’t excuse one from being romantic the rest of the year, then, really, what’s the point?

That said, I should point out that Elephants are known to be very partial to chocolate truffles.

A new trend has emerged, of colorizing black and white photographs from the past. The colorizing is well done in the examples I have seen. The website that presents these 40 examples says that colorizing photographs from the late 1800s and early 1900s “changes their appearance from something historic and different, into a scene from today,” “changing our perception of history dramatically.”

They are very interesting, and do look more like our world of today, but I don’t know that they change our perception of history at all. I don’t find black and white photos difficult to understand, perhaps because I’ve always had family albums in black and white, and family pictures on the wall, and remain untroubled by their lack of color.

Do take a few moments to go through these. Doesn’t take long. See what you think. Do these people come alive once colored, does it change your ideas of history? I’m more interested in seeing pictures of things from the past never seen before, colorized or not.

Another day, another eruption of educational idiocy. Political correctness or zero tolerance. Mindless principals, afraid that they might be criticized by someone, somewhere, for allowing any indication of possible, potential, imaginary violence to take place in their school, do remarkably silly things to protect themselves and damage little kids.

Alden Steward, age 9, had watched “The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies,” and his head was still filled with the movie. He told a classmate that he could make him disappear with a ring forged in Middle Earth’s Mount Doom. He brought his “one ring” to school, put it on a classmate’s head, and said he could make him invisible like Bilbo Baggins.

Kermit Elementary School officials in Texas suspended the 9 year old for making violent threats.

“I assure you my son lacks the magical powers necessary to threaten his friend’s existence,” the father wrote. “If he did, I’m sure he’d bring him right back.”

Gosh, I’m not sure that is even as threatening as the little kid who got suspended for eating his pop-tart into a “gun shape.” (Looked more like the State of Idaho to me.)

I have not kept track of all the suspensions of kids for imaginary crimes against their school friends. There are too many. If you cannot distinguish between child’s imaginary play and violence, you are not suitable to be in a position of authority over children. It indicates that if there were an actual emergency, this person could not cope. School Boards should require a modicum of common sense.

Professor Anthony Esolen for Prager University. We’ve been told that the Middle Ages, also known as the Dark Ages, were characterized by oppression ignorance and backwardness in areas like human rights, science, health and the arts? We have been misled.